t unlike his fellow-Visitors always refused them, and fell the
more hardly on those that offered them; he turned out numbers of young
Religious and released elder ones who desired it, and by the time that
he reached Lewes was fairly practised in the duties of his position.

But the thought of the consequences of his action with regard to his
future seldom left him. He had alienated his family, and perhaps
Beatrice. As he rode once through Cuckfield, and caught a glimpse of the
woods above Overfield, glorious in their autumn livery, he wondered
whether he would ever find himself at home there again. It was a good
deal to give up; but he comforted himself with the thought of his own
career, and with the pleasant prospect of possessing some such house in
his own right when the work that he now understood had been
accomplished, and the monastic buildings were empty of occupants.

He had received one letter, to his surprise, from his mother; that was
brought to him by a messenger in one of the houses where he stayed. It
informed him that he had the writer's approval, and that she was
thankful to have one son at least who was a man, and described further
how his father and Mary had come back, and without Margaret, and that
she supposed that the Abbess of Rusper had taken her back.

"Go on, my son," she ended, "it will be all well. You cannot come home,
I know, while your father is in his present mind; but it is a dull place
and you lose nothing. When you are married it will be different. Mr.
Carleton is very tiresome, but it does not matter."

Ralph smiled to himself as he thought of the life that must now be
proceeding at his home.

He had written once to Beatrice, in a rather tentative tone, assuring
her that he was doing his best to be just and merciful, and professing
to take it for granted that she knew how to discount any exaggerated
stories of the Visitors' doings that might come to her ears. But he had
received no answer, and indeed had told her that he did not expect one,
for he was continually on the move and could give no fixed address.

As he came up over the downs above Lewes he was conscious of a keen
excitement; this would be the biggest work he had undertaken, and it had
the additional zest of being a means of annoying his brother who had
provoked him so often. Since his quarrel with Chris in his own rooms in
the summer he had retained an angry contempt towards him. Chris had been
insolent and theatrical,